Amboli- Nature's Grandeur- a Macrophotography Journey

 

A friend, Basav, and I drove to Amboli in his Jimny, we took about 7-8 hours to reach halting along the way. Basav is a man with a passion, about EDC, watches, cars, bikes and other such collectibles. It was a lovely drive, lush green, and thick vegetation the entire route.

Then and Now
Me, Parag, Basav, a bit of grey and it is the same. ...And Basav and I are not portly,
that is the camera and the wind 

On reaching Mrugaya, the homestay where we were staying we went out for a nature trail. Our guide (and the homestay owner) was Parag Rangnekar, a naturalist, (an expert on flora and fauna of most places), an adviser to various governments, the CEO of many NGOs,  a  photographer extraordinaire, a raconteur and above all, a very good friend. A man of many parts.

Amboli Toad
This toad only inhabits Amboli, (as the name would suggest), it is smaller than my thumb and has the most unusual colours, purple and black.

A lot of the photography was experimental, trying this and that, much of it came out blurred and focused on the wrong things. Backlighting and side lighting, with and without the flash and diffuser.

A moth caterpillar and a snail
It rained and poured almost all the time, we photographed till the camera and flash gave up, and then we photographed with our phones.

The three of us saw the usual animals, the Malabar Pit Viper, The Malabar Gliding Frog (MGF), frogs and toads of various types, including the Amboli Toad, tarantulas and so much more.

Malabar Gliding Frog

Malabar Pit Viper
This photo shows its prehensile tail (most Vipers have one) and its patience where two droplets of water are going to fall but it has not moved.

Narrow-mouthed (?) Frog in full cry

Seeing the MGF at various stages of its growth to an adult was a pure delight. We photographed a nearly full grown MGF which had only vestiges of its tail left.

Juvenile Malabar Gliding Frog

Then there were frog’s eggs of different types of frogs, we took so many photographs of these, backlit, with the tadpole in them showing and many more.

Backlit pic of frogs eggs...

...Frogs eggs with the tadpole showing

We took pics of various animals and just enjoyed being out in nature, the rain was a bit of a damper, but at this time in Amboli....

It rained throughout, stopping for a bit and then raining again.  The leeches abounded and Parag got bitten by a leech once and I twice, there are as many cures for a leech bite as there are people.

The time to come back came all too soon, and we drove back by a different route, very scenic and pretty.

And so ended our Amboli odyssey.